


{i was dead wrong all along ;; you said it for my sake}

by falsemurmur



Category: Chuck - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsemurmur/pseuds/falsemurmur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck and Sarah took their steps back at her half-truths and his denials, and Chuck, he pulled on a mask and pretended a ghost waiting for amends wasn’t haunting either of them. <em></em></p>
            </blockquote>





	{i was dead wrong all along ;; you said it for my sake}

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[character-centric: chuck bartowski](http://community.livejournal.com/wings_for_craft/tag/character-centric:+chuck+bartowski), [pairing: chuck/sarah](http://community.livejournal.com/wings_for_craft/tag/pairing:+chuck/sarah), [tv: chuck](http://community.livejournal.com/wings_for_craft/tag/tv:+chuck), [type: oneshot](http://community.livejournal.com/wings_for_craft/tag/type:+oneshot)  
  
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_**{i was dead wrong all along ;; you said it for my sake}**_  
**  
title: **{i was dead wrong all along ;; you said it for my sake}  
**fandom: **Chuck  
**summary: **Chuck and Sarah took their steps back at her half-truths and his denials, and Chuck, he pulled on a mask and pretended a ghost waiting for amends wasn’t haunting either of them. _  
_**character(s)/pairing(s): **Chuck Bartowski, Chuck/Sarah (mentions of Bryce, Bryce/Sarah)  
**genre:** Angst/Romance  
**rating:** pg-13  
**note:** this is for [](http://mini-miss.livejournal.com/profile)[**mini_miss**](http://mini-miss.livejournal.com/), who gave me several lyrics to prompt me to write something for her. this is her belated birthday gift. yes, this is set post the finale (my second one, what what), but this is definitely a slightly different direction. enjoy. :)~*~  
They go in circular motions. _Stop_. _Danger_. _Safe_. _Stop_.

And he kept waiting for the go sign.

It never came. Just obstacles and delays, everything a mirror of an almost kiss.

He thought, perhaps, he jinxed himself with his constant frustration with they way things weren’t going, because all it took was one decision, and his life was changed. And it was his decision now, not his burden to bear, but rather, his responsibility to uphold the integrity and mission of the Intersect.

Of the many things suddenly running through his mind at the discovery of the new, improved, aspects of this new intersect, one thought that covered many basis is “I don’t have to stay in the car” anymore and that’s something. He believed, that was something. He was a spy now, right?

It wasn’t so simple, because it was just like Bryce Larkin to leave something behind every time he died. The more noticeable one this go-around was his ghost.

Given everything else, sure, it seemed a bit out of line for Chuck to once again hold resentment over Bryce Larkin, especially since the guy is dead. Dead.

And Chuck would remember the days he and Bryce would stifle their laughs in the library, would be talking in excitable murmurs about the video game they were trying to produce, would stay up screaming at their textbooks, sure none of the texts would help them when they were out of college. Following Bryce’s death, it was the first time in a long time since he dwelled on that past life, and that past best friend. Bryce Larkin never hung more on his mind, and never more on Sarah’s, and this was just another obstacle obstructing the ‘go’ sign.

Too many times, Chuck believed the ‘go’ part simply did not exist.

*

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said only once, really. But she carried it in her eyes a lot. She hated that technically he, Chuck Bartowski, was a spy now. She helped him, sure. She showed him breathing, control, kicking, punching techniques. Little things to help his body accumulate to the new physical stresses. She laughed sometimes at his little mistakes, and you know what, she seemed fine.

Except when he was actually fighting something other than a punching bag. Something angry yet fearful arose in her eyes every time he was right by her side, when he was supposed to be out of sight, somewhere far and away, not fighting. Like she preferred him as the asset rather than her partner.

(It’s how he knows that Bryce’s death affected her more than she would like to admit. It’s how he knew that Bryce lingered in her mind. Bryce was her partner, and the man she cared for, and he died in the line of duty. But Sarah was a fighter, a CIA agent. Not that it was supposed to make it easier, but wasn’t loss a part of the job? Couldn’t she understand that he, Chuck, had to do this, had to be her partner?)

Casey, of course, pushed him harder. Expected more of him. And having been on the other side of the fence (i.e. having Casey expect less than nothing from Chuck), Chuck liked the shift. It was how he wanted things to go. Being seen as nearly an equal.

Yet, he knew that to Sarah, Chuck had crossed a line, and there was no point of return anymore. Sarah Walker had borders, and whereas Chuck might have had a greater shot at being let through since he was now her equal, instead those chances diminished as her borders thickened at the death of a partner.

*

General Casey called a lot of the shots, and something he did was stand between Chuck and Sarah more often. Sarah never moved. She let fences broaden, kicked a bridge or two shut.

When Chuck confronted her, she half-lied, half-screamed her truths, to him.

(Chuck was never good at confrontation, but he was good at doing what he had to do, regardless of discomfort and selfish needs. Yes, he screamed one morning, just before heading into a cover job with Sarah. She was changing and ignoring him, being cold, and he couldn’t do anything other than yell, so yes, this was a selfish confrontation. She didn’t yell, in fact, she was stoic. She shrugged off his accusations until he gripped her forearms, stared at her with diluted, hurtful eyes, and she kissed him, whispering “I don’t want to lose you, I don’t want something to happen just because I got too close to my partner” and she pushed him off with a kick. It was more than he could have--should have asked of her.)

They retracted. Both Chuck and Sarah took their steps back at her half-truths and his denials, and Chuck, he pulled on a mask and pretended a ghost waiting for amends wasn’t haunting either of them. (For the smallest while he managed to pretend, anyway.)

*

Laying on the pavement, her fingers turned cold, her face pale.

He’s spent many nights remembering how Sarah laid splayed against the concrete, dress tattered, skin bruised, blood seeping from a cut on her cheek. 

She breathed life into his soul. Chuck could say this without hesitating. It was a fact. And he knew she would be fine, that all she had were artificial cuts and bruises, and she was only semi-unconscious. All it took was the smallest flinch from her, however, for his veins to go ice cold with fear.

Knowing that despite the months that passed, the year since that incident, and despite the cold shoulder she’s thrown at him in that year and now months, despite time and borders, the image still clogs his throat, disallowing him to breathe, and it’s how he knows that he will love always love Sarah. Always.

Too many times, Chuck let himself believe that this would allow him and Sarah to someday encounter that ‘go’ sign, because if love didn’t allow for it, then the world really was screwed.

*

(It just happened one day. Chuck breathed and realized that Bryce Larkin was an excuse. The terrible thing of it all was that Sarah had known for a long time that Bryce was just an excuse, but it had taken Chuck much longer to recognize this. He wondered how it was that Chuck had hated obstacles for so long and yet had aided in building them.)

*

He’s pushed a lot. Too much. One day, he just came to that conclusion. It was the day he got tired of holding Sarah’s fears over his own. He wasn’t perfect. He couldn’t just jump in head first. He was still young and he had things to do with his life. He had a family to look after and just well, cherish. And how many times did he put Sarah before them? Before Morgan and before work?

(And you know what? Sarah understood all of this. She understood that even Chuck had a limit, a temperament all his own, and that even he could scream_ enough_. She went and told him that they needed time apart. Real time apart, and that’s when she filed for a transfer. He kissed her on the cheek, said “I’ll miss you” and she said “it’s what we need to do” and all of that understanding and her giving him space, all of it? It only made him love her more.)

He wanted Sarah to push back, to quit the pulling. And then she left, allowing him to stop having to push or pull or anything. He was free, and it was then, as she rode away in her car, off who knows where for her transfer, that he thought maybe he let ghosts and selfishness cloud his area of understanding. Because he knew she was scared, that she carried bits of Bryce within her, but he never attempted understanding why Bryce meant so much, or how she dealt with a life that entailed loss without gain.

Life was a learning game. A game he advocated very much, and yet, he’d only ever met it half-way.

*

But Chuck wasn‘t going to put on a chase. He waited for it. Quite impatiently. Something which Casey would attest to. Chuck couldn’t even mention Sarah in the slightest in front of Casey anymore, as the man had threatened to shoot him next time the thought even escaped Chuck’s mind.

Four months.

It was only four months (17 weeks to be a little more exact), but anytime you asked him how long had gone since he had seen Sarah, he would respond “oh I don’t know, AGES” and it was true. Ages passed.

But with a blink she was back in sight, completely unchanged, ready to work as always.

But even after she returned, he waited. This was him having issues with confrontation. He’d spent quite some nights, laying in bed, pondering on what to tell her--on how to tell her that he wanted to understand. That he wasn’t going to push, because she had her own terms and things between them wouldn’t go forward if he kept endorsing something she clearly did not want. That yes, he wanted her, but not if she didn’t want him (even though he knew she did, but he also knew she wanted other things and did not want certain things).

He went through several motions, stages, acts. All on how to travel through the diagnoses of not just his feelings, but hers as well.

And then he was ready.

They walked into the courtyard, after spending the day just giving each other awkward smiles as everyone moved around them, welcoming Sarah from her so-called “trip”. They had their hug, but that was for show.

They walked through the courtyard, silent next to one another, Casey pushing past them as he sent them warning glares. And they stopped at the fountain, Sarah’s eyes watching the water flow back and forth, Chuck’s eyes sifting through Sarah’s, and the silence was too much, at least silence without touch.

He wrapped his arms around her, and Sarah let out the briefest chuckle at the contact. She turned in his arms, wrapped her arms around his back, and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Sarah, I’m sorry--” he began, ready to do his part as his cheek brushed against Sarah’s, but she jumped in, mouth moving beside his neck, her breath tickling his earlobe. “I’m still scared Chuck, I still don’t want to lose you, and so long as I never have you, I can’t lose you, but there’s nothing worse than losing the actual chance…and I want that chance. Chuck, I want that chance.”

She said it in the quickest motion, nearly in one breath, everything threading through her tone, like her fingers that gripped his shirt tightly, holding on for a chance. And he held her tighter.


End file.
